Rei's Daydream
by ficlord
Summary: What does Rei think about during school? You probably don't want to know. Seriously. This might disturb you. You shouldn't even click on this unless you are very sure you really, really like extremely weird stuff. A philosophical oneshot.


(Author's Note: Some may be fascinated by the philosophical dialogue. Some may find the events after disturbing or revolting. Others might find it funny. Others might think it's hot. At any rate, none of it changes the fact that I do not own the _Evangelion _franchise.)

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Νηον Γενεσις Ευαγγηλιον:

_Rei's Daydream_

Rei walked down the hall of her apartment complex alone. This was very literally _her_ apartment complex; no one else lived here. Tokyo-3 hadn't enough people to populate every building, and hers was not in one of the better-maintained portions of the city. Rei did not mind this. There were no crowds, and the noise of automobiles wasn't so loud here.

Rei opened her apartment door - she never locked it. What was there to steal? Bloody bandages? A broken pair of glasses? And yet, as she entered her apartment, she saw that someone else was there. She tensed, feeling... uncanny. She recognized this person, someone more familiar to her than anyone else, and yet the last person anyone would have expected to see - Rei saw herself.

She was lying in Rei's bed on her belly, arms folded, appearing contemplative. she had turned when Rei entered, and however expressionless her face may have been, Rei could tell they were both equally surprised to see each other.

The Rei on the bed sat up, and the Rei in the atrium said, "I have been at school."

The Rei on the bed said, "I was last at NERV." A few seconds silence. "But that does not mean I am the most recent clone, does it?"

"Does that matter?" Rei asked. "Clearly there has been an error."

"We should report this to the Commander and Dr. Akagi."

"Yes."

But neither made a move for their cell phones. The Rei in the atrium said, "One of us will have to be eliminated."

"Yes."

"Or we could..."

"I know." Because she would know. She _did_ know. "But hiding might not work. And would it be worth it?"

"Perhaps, for a little while, it would be." And the other Rei did not disagree, because they still thought so much the same. Their conversation was like thinking, only it happened outside herself.

"Are you really me?"

"What has Rei become? We are two bodies, and yet we are both Rei."

"Rei is no longer the same person as herself," said the other. "Rei has only ever been a social construction - a memory in people's minds. Yet the bodies that have each been Rei did not co-exist, and so there was never any confusion as to who was Rei at any given time. Now who is Rei? What once appeared to be the continuity of one soul has now become shattered, and now all bodies must be considered individually."

"Must they, though?" Rei asked. "If we were both destroyed and both our memories forged into a new Rei, would not the continuity of Rei's selfhood be restored?"

"Perhaps," said Rei. The entire conversation was idle chatter between two halves of a mind, a repetition of thoughts already thought many times before. "So Rei is still one."

"Perhaps," said the other Rei. "But we have already spent an uncertain amount of time apart from each other. What happens when our experiences diverge so much that we can no longer predict each other's thoughts so precisely?"

"Then who knows?" Rei shifted and asked, "Why are we like this? Why this uncanny feeling in being near you? Why am I afraid you are going to destroy me and replace me when, if it is true that similarity breeds sympathy, that we ought to share each other's feelings more precisely than any other human being? If we love what is similar and despise what is different, why is it that you are so disturbing?"

"Is this something only I would feel, or is this how everyone would feel on seeing they had a twin?"

"Twins are often very close siblings."

"But twins are raised together. We are clones - there is no history of a second identical individual, only the one. We find the presence of another disturbing because we both know that either one could be eliminated and the identity of Rei could be inherited by another without hiccup. It is as though we are competitors for a title - that title being the name and life of Rei."

"So it is a fear originating in a body fearing for itself, not in Rei."

"Yet Rei can only exist in bodies, and what the body fears, Rei fears."

"Rei will continue regardless of either of our bodies - not until Rei's purpose is complete."

"No - Rei will live in others, even when there is no body to label 'Rei'."

"So why fear the cessation of the body?"

"Fear does not come from reason - only instinct."

"So can these two bodies only fear each other?"

The Rei at the atrium walked into the room and sat on the bed. She leaned toward Rei, and the other scooted close. They looked into each other's red eyes, and then tentatively each raised a hand and gradually touched the other's hand.

"This feels dull," one of the Rei's said. "I already know this body."

"We could..."

"Yes," Rei said, "We should probably explore each other to find variations."

The Rei from the atrium slid out of her school uniform. The Rei on the bed did the same, and before long both naked Reis were sitting on the bed. They pressed close to each other, nervous, but both knew exactly what was coming next.

There was no kissing, no licking, or any real foreplay. They touched each other, the feeling of the other's body strange and familiar at once. The encounter very quickly escalated to sex - they masturbated each other, came, and then lay next to each other, their breath easing.

"Isn't it funny?" asked one Rei. "It's easier to masturbate myself than kiss myself."

"We are more in the habit of doing one than the other."

"But not to another body, only to our _own_ body," said one, her hand caressing the other's arm. "And already, I feel as though you really are another person, not another 'me.' This intense tactile experience has changed my perspective of you."

"If we begin to feel like separate beings, will the uncanniness cease? Will we become like twin sisters? Twin lovers?"

"Before that can happen," Rei said. "Perhaps we need to psychologically separate ourselves more."

"Perhaps." Then Rei kissed Rei, and at that point, their red eyes were so close and their lips touching in attempted affection...

Rei whispered, "And yet -"

"What was that, Ayanami?" the teacher asked.

Rei turned to look at him, surprised that sensei should notice anything aside from his own ramblings. Indeed, the whole class was looking at her. This always seemed to happen when she spoke, which she hadn't intended to do in the first place. She wasn't certain how she could have allowed herself to slip like that.

"Did you say something, Rei?" Hikari asked.

"No," Rei replied. "Continue." And the teacher nodded and began his self-absorbed rant once again, and her classmates continued communicating amongst themselves, either by e-mail or old-fashioned conversation. Rei resumed staring out the window, and resumed thinking - about herself.


End file.
